AreTooWokeVille
Would you buy a used (and/or new high five figure) car from this man?
In March, Alexandre Ponsin set out on a family road trip from Colorado to California in his newly purchased Tesla, a used 2021 Model 3. He expected to get something close to the electric sport sedan’s advertised driving range: 353 miles on a fully charged battery.
He soon realized he was sometimes getting less than half that much range, particularly in cold weather – such severe underperformance that he was convinced the car had a serious defect...
...Ponsin contacted Tesla and booked a service appointment in California. He later received two text messages, telling him that “remote diagnostics” had determined his battery was fine, and then: “We would like to cancel your visit.”
What Ponsin didn’t know was that Tesla employees had been instructed to thwart any customers complaining about poor driving range from bringing their vehicles in for service. Last summer, the company quietly created a “Diversion Team” in Las Vegas to cancel as many range-related appointments as possible...
It turns out that there is nothing wrong with the cars as designed and built.
Instead, owners of the vehicles have unrealistic expectations of their range, presumably based on the car company's own distance 'till dead claims...
...In most cases, the complaining customers’ cars likely did not need repair, according to the people familiar with the matter. Rather, Tesla created the groundswell of complaints another way – by hyping the range of its futuristic electric vehicles, or EVs, raising consumer expectations beyond what the cars can deliver. Teslas often fail to achieve their advertised range estimates and the projections provided by the cars’ own equipment, according to Reuters interviews with three automotive experts who have tested or studied the company’s vehicles.Neither Tesla nor Chief Executive Elon Musk responded to detailed questions from Reuters for this story...
As for the 'Diversion Team' itself?
Well...
Well...
...Inside the Nevada team’s office, some employees celebrated canceling service appointments by putting their phones on mute and striking a metal xylophone, triggering applause from coworkers who sometimes stood on desks. The team often closed hundreds of cases a week and staffers were tracked on their average number of diverted appointments per day.Managers told the employees that they were saving Tesla about $1,000 for every canceled appointment, the people said. Another goal was to ease the pressure on service centers, some of which had long waits for appointments...
Apparently, this issue is not a bug but rather a feature intentionally built into the cars from the beginning:
...Tesla years ago began exaggerating its vehicles’ potential driving distance – by rigging their range-estimating software. The company decided about a decade ago, for marketing purposes, to write algorithms for its range meter that would show drivers “rosy” projections for the distance it could travel on a full battery, according to a person familiar with an early design of the software for its in-dash readouts.Then, when the battery fell below 50% of its maximum charge, the algorithm would show drivers more realistic projections for their remaining driving range, this person said...
Sheesh.
_____
The story heavily quoted above is an excellent chunk of investigative journalism by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu published by Reuters yesterday....
7 comments:
In other words, Tesla is giving customers the same response as Elmo gives the media: 💩
Cap--
From Cory Doctorow's post...
"The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren't just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car's range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they'd have to request a callback, which could take several days.
Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars."
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Bait and switch, fake advertising, alternative facts, no consumer protection. Business as usual it would seem.
EE--
And use Digital Rights Management (DRM - it's not just for songs and movies anymore!) laws to keep customers from actually looking under the hood to see what's going on and/or to fix things themselves.
Again from Doctorow...
"DRM allows him (Musk) to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren't just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed – they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds."
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Musk always looked like a "used car salesperson" to me. No offense to actual used car salespeople
Thank you for the article. Lets hope it get a lot of exposure and governments stop encouraging the purchase of these vehicles. Given we are now seeing storms and heat domes due to climate change, you could wind up dead if your car doesn't move any more.
One could say Musk/Tesla is perpetrating a fraud on its customers. I've mever been keen on electric cars because when you run out of "fuel" that is it. With a gas driven vehicle you can alwaYS siphon fuel from another vehicle. If you have a diesel you can even use cooking oil to run it.
Given how large our country is, its best to either buy a hybrid or liquid fuel vehicle. A Tesla might be good for communting to and from work in an urban area but that is about it. Besides the cost of a Tesla, and its inability to go as far as advertised, you would be better to purchase a small vehicle for your commutes. In 1972 I purchased my first vehicle, a Mini austin 1000. Ran on fumes.
Musk seems to have problems running "twitter", now we find out he isn't that forth coming with the truth regarding his vehicles.
Thank you to those who did the research for this article.
Makes you wonder about the ethics, morals, and self-esteem of these people who dance on their desks if they successfully screw over their customers.
Question: Why is Musk allowed to defraud customers?
Advertised ad nauseam are ads on Facebook, proclaiming provincial consumer protection rights. HA! What rights?
Musk is allowed to defraud customers because all politicians have jumped on the electric car bandwagon as a "cure for global Warming" which it isn't, not by a long shot.
Fact is, the various levels of government are abetting Musk's fraud by giving rebates, concessions, and privileges for those driving electric cars.
From what I can see here that the vast majority of studies comparing electric cars are based on very questionable assumptions and if the assumptions are wrong, then the study is not worth the paper it is printed on.
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